Rip Tide Scuba Cop has never looked better than he has in today’s strip, which would be high praise for Mindy’s coloring skills if this wasn’t issue #2 of the title.

That’s more than can be said of Pete’s writing… Why Rip Tide did not assume that antibodies would be apt to attack him, as they do to germs and other foreign substances in the bloodstream seems like a rather foolish call on his part. It also seems like this will be an expensive cover to print, requiring a special cut for the thought bubble that hangs off of the side. Chester may have to sell some more of his collection.

And with that, I leave this gilded site and the mucky comic strip that it covers in the extra-capable hands of comicbookharriet. Best of luck, hope you don’t get any Les strips.

25 responses to “Clotting with faint praise”

The first issue had Rip rescuing a woman from a shark. The second has him shrinking somehow and entering somebody’s bloodstream. Apparently Pete ran out of “scuba cop” stories after just a single issue, which is not a good sign.

Check out Mindy, already shamelessly fishing for compliments…from Boy Lisa no less. I mean she has almost as much experience in the comic book industry as he has yet he’s suddenly an elder statesman capable of rating her work from his lofty perch. Give me a break. Batom’s nutty comic book fantasies are morphing into some sort of weird fevered comic book dream world where everyone’s part of some bizarre comic book family and a more sickening spectacle I cannot recall.

“Mister Hagglestein, this is Minty. She looks like me and dresses like me, but she’s actually an entirely different person. Anyways – and I say ‘anyways’ because I’m from Ohio – she colored this ‘book’ cover, and we hired her. Nice work, huh?”

“Hmmmm, why yes! Quite exquisite. And you already hired her?”

“Yes, Mister Haggleberg.”

“Splendid, Duuuhhhren. Well done. You’re fired, of course. I only need two of you, and she’s much better at this than you are, as you can see. Goodbye, Duuuhhhren.”

“Aw, shucks. Hello, Masonne? This is Duuuhhhren. Remember me? Hey, how’s that Starbucks Jones movie going? I was thinking. I think I’d like to come back to Hollywood and… hello? Hello…? Aw, heck…….. Hello, Funky? Hey, this is Duuuhhhren. Remember me? MBA? Wrote the pizza app? Invented breakfast pizza? Hey, I’m back in Ohio and was wondering if you needed… hello? Hello…? Aw, darn.”

Fantastic coloring job! A black scuba suit and five shades of pink for the corpuscles, and the awesome shade of yellow she chose for the title. Interesting that on Friday, Durwood was gushing because “you got the uniform colors right and everything”. I guess that’s pretty easy, since the only uniform I see on the cover is fucking BLACK.

It’s going to be a rough road for Atomik Komix, if this is the second issue and already the best Mopey Pete can do is regurgitate a story idea that has already been done multiple times in various other media.

Minty got hired for this job, not by the owner of the company, but by a fellow employee. Huh?? On the spot, she accepted the job without asking about pay or benefits, or pondering leaving her current job. Huh??

I don’t expect all the tedious details of how employment works, but this is just silly. This is how a sixth grader would write this story. Or a 71 year old who has never held a real job.